Mobile TV news keeps coming

The latest mobile TV news comes from UTStarcom, who has signed a contract with China Netcom to deploy its RollingStream end-to-end IPTV solution in China.

For me to write three consecutive blogs about the same subject, there must be something going on here. The subject of the moment is mobile TV. First I wrote about how a consortium here in the US has been formed to make DVB-H a reality (called the Mobile DTV Alliance, www.mdtvalliance.org).

The second was the result of a reader firing back that DVB-H is to expensive and too far in the future for his needs. And oh, by the way, he was promoting his own technology (called ROK TV, www.rok.tv) that's here today, albeit just in the UK.

The latest mobile TV news comes from one of the handset giants, UTStarcom. The company has signed a contract with China Netcom to deploy its RollingStream end-to-end IPTV solution in Harbin in the Heilongjiang in northeast China. According to UTStarcom, the deal represents the single largest IPTV capacity deployment in China to date. More information is available at www.utstar.com/Solutions/Broadband/IPTV.

I know that this is not a traditional mobile TV development, like the first two I discussed. But if you read between the lines, it certainly has the potential to go there. Today, the typical IPTV features are available, like TV and video on-demand, as well as traditional Internet functions, such as on-line weather reports and information browsing.

While this is interesting for traditional broadband customers, the real win is when you offer these features on a handset.